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Commentary :: Peace

Bush Lies, Propaganda Falling Flat

Bush Lies, Propaganda Falling Flat
"See, in my line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." - President George W. Bush, Rochester, N.Y., May 24, 2005.

Tom DeLay knew his days of leadership were over when Newt Gingrich, the disgraced former house speaker, started lecturing his one-time colleagues about ethics and the dangers of lobbyists and cronyism running wild in Washington.

"I have always acted in an ethical manner," DeLay wrote in a Nixonian letter to Republicans in the House of Representatives, informing them he would not seek to return to his post as majority leader. DeLay was forced to step down from that position after being indicted on felony money-laundering charges in Texas.

DeLay made the announcement as his favorite lobbyist, golf-outing organizer and bag-man, Jack Abramoff, copped a plea with federal prosecutors and began singing away about money he paid to members of Congress to do his bidding. President George Bush and many lawmakers scrambled to give tainted campaign donations from Abramoff to charities. How noble. Gingrich knows how the harlots on the Hill peddle their favors.

"You can't have a corrupt lobbyist without a corrupt member or staffer on the other end," he said.

While DeLay nurtured the most pervasively corrupt Congress in memory, his chief enabler saw him as a valuable ally.

Last Wednesday, three days before DeLay's leadership farewell, Bush declared on the Fox News Channel that DeLay is innocent in the Texas case. Forgive me for my conservative and traditional ways, but isn't that a question for a jury to decide?

Bush told the always-adoring Brit "Home Court" Hume that he hopes DeLay is cleared of the charges and returns to his leadership position.

"I hope that he will. When he's over there, we get our votes through the House," Bush said. That's one line we won't hear him repeating.

Bush made the unscripted and revealing "repeating things" remark cited above when he was on a snake-oil tour trying to sell his plans to "reform" Social Security. For now, Bush has stopped repeating his Social Security lies. He has more pressing frauds to foster.

The Busheviks have raised relentless propaganda to a level usually found only in the most oppressive totalitarian states. With the slavish acquiescence of their allies in the corporate media, they have created an Orwellian babble-machine masked as public discourse.

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who left college to join the Marines and fought in Korea and Vietnam, says he would not join the military today. In an interview with John Donovan on ABC's "Nightline," Murtha said the war in Iraq is a "fundamental mistake" and the U.S. Army is "broken and overstretched."

The White House propagandists sent out the cavalry in the person of Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who whined that Murtha's remarks were "damaging to recruiting."

The very day Pace read his propaganda lines, 11 U.S. troops and more than 180 Iraqis died. Over the weekend, 12 troops were killed when a Black Hawk helicopter went down.

Murtha knows why military recruitment is shrinking. He noted that there was no problem after the Sept. 11 attacks, "but now the military's ability to attract recruits is being hampered by the prospect of prolonged, extended and repeated deployments, inadequate equipment, shortened home stays, the lack of any connection between Iraq and the brutal attacks of 9/11 and -- most importantly -- the administration's constantly changing, undefined, open-ended military mission in Iraq."

Pace, new to his job, would do well to stop the Pentagon propaganda machine that lied about how Jessica Lynch was rescued and how Pat Tillman died and now feeds Pace the falsehoods he dutifully repeats. A little dose of truth would help. Only fools believe Murtha's words hurt recruitment.

One of the most laughable propaganda scenes the Busheviks have choreographed in a long time was last week's White House briefing session on the "progress" in Iraq held for 13 former secretaries of state and defense. I don't fault the folks who attended to listen to the 40-minute dog-and-pony show, but it's hardly the kind of forum where any meaningful discussions can take place.

Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, had the nerve to suggest that the mess created by ousting two-bit dictator Saddam Hussein and attacking and occupying Iraq, a fourth-rate military power, was "taking up all the energy" of the administration's foreign policy team.

She suggested, according to a New York Times report, that the real threats of nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran and policies toward China and Latin America are being neglected.

Bush bristled, "I can't let that comment stand," and went on to argue that his administration "can do more than one thing at a time."

The whole facade of Bush engaged in bipartisan consultation is a joke. How many of those experienced hands did he talk to before invading Iraq? We know he didn't even discuss his war plans with his own father, famously prudent George H.W. Bush.

Bob Woodward, former journalist and now Bush's Boswell, informs us in his admiring book, "Plan of Attack," that Bush told him on the eve of war that "his own father is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. 'There is a higher father that I appeal to.'"

That must be the same God Rev. Pat Robertson consulted when he called for the assassination of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, or when he told us recently that God punished Ariel Sharon with a stroke for his decision to withdraw from Gaza.

There was certainly some divine intervention and humor in the silly official White House class photo of the former secretaries. They gathered around Bush's bare, empty desk in the Oval Office, perfectly reflecting the empty substance of the occasion. Bush wore his "What, me worry?" grin and Condi Rice smiled like she was posing for "Vogue." Rummy had that vacuous beam of the failed person incapable of recognizing his failures. Dick Cheney smirked like he just trampled on more constitutional rights while watching torture videos and getting another residual check from Halliburton. Albright turned away from the camera, her lips pinched like she just bit into a lemon. The propaganda photo looks as phony as the whole ploy to portray Bush as seeking the advice of people who disagree with him. He never does that. He surrounds himself with a chorus of yes-men and the supreme sycophant, "Concealeezza" Rice.

Bush is content catapulting the same propaganda.

"As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."

"We're fighting for freedom."

"It's hard work."

"We will stay the course."

"America is safer."

In our mad King George's mind, his work requires him to "keep repeating things over and over again," trying to make the lies sink in.

Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. Email to: gallaghernewsman (at) sbcglobal.net.

© 2006 Niagara Falls Reporter

www.commondreams.org/views06/0110-36.htm
 
 

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